Laser imagers are widely used to produce visual representations of images on film, such as light sensitive photothermographic film, for example. Laser imagers are used in a variety of applications ranging from standard photography and graphic arts applications to medical applications where they are used to produce visual representations on film of digital image date generated by magnetic resonance (MR), computed tomography (CT), and other types of scanners.
Laser imagers typical include a media supply system, a feeder system, a feeder system, an exposure system, a processing system, an output system (e.g. output tray, sorter), and a transport system that moves film through the laser imager along a transport path through the exposure and processing systems to the output system. The media supply system generally includes a supply of sheets of photothermographic media stacked in one or more cassettes or trays and a pickup assembly for removing individual sheets from the cassettes for delivery to the feeder assembly.
Laser imagers often segregate the functions of extracting a film sheet from the media supply system, exposing or imaging the extracted sheet, and processing or developing the exposed sheet. However, in order to provide faster time-to-first-image and so as to provide increased film throughput, some laser imaging systems perform some such operations concurrently in an overlapping fashion. For example, some laser imagers begin processing or developing the film sheet while it is still being exposed, a so-called processing-while-imaging system. Other imagers begin exposing the film sheet while the sheet is stilling being supplied to the exposure system by the media supply and feeder systems. In such cases, it is important to avoid sheet disturbances associated with transfer of the film sheet from the feeder and media supply systems to the exposure system, as such disturbances can propagate through the film sheet and create defects in the exposed image on the film sheet.
While such systems may have achieved certain degrees of success in their particular applications, there is a need to provide an improved system and method for transferring film sheets from feeder and media supply systems to an exposure system which is simultaneously exposing the film sheet in laser imaging systems employing photothermographic imaging media.